Wizards & Spells (Dungeons & Dragons): A Young Adventurer's Guide (Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer's Guides)
This illustrated guide transports new players to the magical world of Dungeons & Dragons and presents a one-of-a-kind course on the wizards, sorcerers, and other magic-makers for which the game is known. Featuring easy-to-follow and entertaining explanations of how spells are created and used in the game, along with original illustrations of the game's essential magical characters, this book shines a spotlight on the mystical side of D&D.
The perfect jumping-on point for young fans of fantasy looking to give D&D a try, Wizards and Spells also features prompts to encourage creative problem-solving skills in the dangerous situations that may be encountered in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure.
Reviews (31)
Beautiful but little help and somewhat distracting
I got this for my son so that he could have an awesome (and more focused) way to explore his wizard, but it isn't a useful resource. It's mostly a unique book about. It is beautifully illustrated, but it has a massive portion of it dedicated to things other than wizards and spells. Only half of the book is wizards and spells. The spells section talks about a few spells from each level, which is fine, but it would be nice for it to focus in more on the low level spells. This is meant as a kids introduction to Wizards and it is far too limited. Yes, this is what the Player's Handbook is for, but I spent half of the cost of a PHB for something that should have had less materials than half of it, and got less than half of that. tldr; This is only half about Wizards and too little even then.
Gateway to DnD for 10-year-old
I purchased this book, Wizards and Spells, at the request of my 10-year-old. Previously, I had purchased the other books in the series (Warriors and Weapons and Monsters and Creatures). I don't know a lot about DnD, but my son loves dragon stories, so I figured he might enjoy these fiction books in a expository style. As a child who loves taxonomy, these books were a fun way for him to categorize an imaginary world. He read the first two books in the series multiple times and keeps them by his beside for reference. The books are not rule books, so I wasn't sure how useful they would be. But once the Dungeons and Tombs (the third) book arrived with guidelines on how maps are drawn, he had invented his own rules for role-playing. He began a dungeon master, and his 7-year-old sibling and I (his father) became his adventurers. He didn't need all of the fancy official rules to run his imagination game. He had monster ideas, hero suggestions, and item details to create and run his own DnD lite campaign. This newest book on magic has been highly anticipated since now he can learn all about druids as well as the other magic classes (and lists of spells and their effects). It's the ultimate book for a Harry Potter fan + future biological taxonomist. Beware: these books are a gateway to the world of table top RPG. His next requested purchase has been the DnD Essentials Kit which appears to offer official rules. We are becoming a DnD family, and I can trace it directly to the purchase of this seemingly harmless series of fantasy description books. We have been ensnared.
Great introduction for the 10-13 year old crowd to Mystical Character Classes
The Reasonable Reviewer family was a gaming place when the kids were younger, and all of them spent hundreds of hours around the gaming table as they grew up playing role-playing games. This would have been a great book to have 30 years ago. (Normally, I include pictures and videos with my reviews, but recently the system does not allow the upload of those. When the capability comes back on-line, I will upload some visual files with the review.) The book covers six character classes: bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard. For each class, the book describes the aspects of the class, what kinds of equipment and attributes work best with the class, and give an example of a high level avatar of the class to give the younger gamer an idea of what his or her character might be like one day. (Long time D&D players will recognize some of the exemplar characters from the earliest days of D&D.) One of my favorite aspects of the book is the flow chart on pages 28-29 that help the young player trace the potential mystic path that might work best with the player's desires for his or her character. Also, the whole book is lavishly illustrated. It is really a work of art and highly giftable. Pages 30-75 have example spells by level and include spells at each level from across the mystic professions. There are enough spells to give players an idea of the general kinds of things that the character might do, but not enough to create a spellbook. The last 30+ pages describe magic items that a character might or might not see in a campaign. This is a lovely book to garner legitimate interest in and answer basic questions for the would-be mystic, junior gamer. I was hoping that you might be able to use the material in the book to create a basic level character in each of the classes, but you will need a player's handbook to do that.
Great series for those wishing to get a glimse into the world of D&D
Great book to just dip your toes into the massive world of D&D. To get the full experience I would recommend getting the full set. Each book has brief (comparing to the actual manuals) descriptions of the key areas of play in D&D. This book is really a continuation of the Warriors & Weapons book, in so much that, it delves into the classes that are available to choose from as an adventurer. This book, though, focuses on the spell-casting classes that were missing from that first book. This book also contains a section that reviews the spells that these classes are able to use. Overall, a great introduction to some of the most difficult classes to master in the D&D world. I have always loved the D&D books for their beautiful imagery and this book is no exception! I have also seen the authors discuss these books online and they have stated that the illustrations in these books are all new! So something for you fans of the D&D books for the great visuals that they contain. I bought these just because I want to get a complete D&D library, but it is still well worth the purchase if you just want to see if you want to get into this world.
Must have for D&D families
We have purchased this entire series for our family. These books are such an amazing way to get and keep our children engaged in D&D. They have them at their side while playing like the players hand book, constantly looking up monsters, spells, famous, characters and locations. Great work highly recommend! Players handbook for kids/younger audiance might not be a bad idea for the next book as long as it's this same group making it.
Good basic info, nice to dream on
This is a great book for a young person just beginning RPGs. The print quality is above average, with thick glossy pages; the illustrations are clear, with characters showing arrogance, slyness, and open hostility which many people could relate to. (Not myself: I'm too old for that LOL!) The style of art includes some exaggerations of features (such as foot size) that pushed at my OCD nature, but I suppose artists should be allowed some license. Colors are good. The text did feel a bit rushed, as if the writer wasn't able to get fully into character, but still provided enough detail to trigger swoops of imagination. Any RPG player should be good at filling in the blanks! Example characters were reasonably colorful, again with backgrounds that should stimulate imagination. Disclosure: I've never played D&D, and really haven't seen much of it since the late 1970s, so I'm not familiar with the realms, creatures, and classes in use in the modern games. I have no idea what this book may be missing, so I apologize to any veteran players out there that may be offended by my ETPerspective.
Fun series with beautiful illustrations
Purchased this set to enjoy to enjoy with my child. It's a great series with wonderful illustrations. We're enjoying making new characters to play & looking forward to all the fun campaigns we'll come up with using these books as a guideline and inspiration.
Good, but a bit of a weird layout
This is pretty much as good as all the other books, but the section on spells is a bit weird, and the complex usage of words like the names of the schools of magic may go over children's heads. Mostly I just wish they would've been able to have a picture for every single spell so that kids could fathom the weirder ones a bit easier. That's basically my only complaint though. The illustrations are beautiful and it's a solid addition to the collection.
8 year old loves these books!!! Please make more.
My 8 year absolutely loves these books. The artwork is perfect as well. There's not enough books in this series to give him.
Perfect for young newbies
I am in the process of introducing D&D (a game I have played for 40 years) to my nephews and niece. They adore these books. The quality is superb and the books are incredibly readable for ages 6+. I appreciate the author's choice of not using ANY mechanics - all abilities are narratively described rather than using mechanics.
Comments
Post a Comment